Helen
I screwed my eyes shut and let Mr Roberts lead me, and I was laughing. My eyes were stinging, and my cheeks felt weird and clammy, and I was still sore and sensitive between my legs. But I was happy.
Oh my God, was I happy.
He led me along the corridor, and through a doorway, and there were tiles under my feet. He dropped my hand, and I opened my eyes enough to take in my surroundings. His bathroom was as artistically disorganised as the rest of his house, with plants trailing from the windowsill and paintbrushes resting on the basin. I watched him reach into the bathtub and turn on the shower head, and he tested the heat of the water, only pulling back the shower curtain when we were good to go.
I stepped up into the bath and into his arms, and it was so warm there, cocooned in his grip as the shower rained down on me. He tipped my face up to the cascade, and I held my breath and closed my eyes as his fingers washed away the stickiness and the saltiness and the stinging.
He smoothed my hair under the water, teasing out the lengths before grabbing a bottle. He lathered shampoo into my scalp, then carried on down, frothing me up with body scrub that smelled of tea tree and citrus. I enjoyed the moment, moving wherever he guided, as he washed me and stroked me and pressed his lips against my wet skin. His fingers felt like heaven as they soaped my breasts, tweaking and coaxing until I could feel myself rolling into him. I gasped as his hand slipped between my legs, but he was so gentle, soaping me up and washing me down, leaving no part of me unclean.
But I didn’t feel self-conscious. I felt loved.
I wanted to do the same for him, but he was tall enough that he had to crouch for me, and I was giggling all over again. His hair was surprisingly long when it was wet, curling down around his shoulders. I loved the feel of it around my fingers.
I loved the feel of his wet skin against mine.
He was hard again as I soaped him, and I wondered if he’d take me again, but he didn’t. He pressed me against the tiles and planted his mouth on mine, and kissed me, and I kissed him. And I wanted to pinch myself, over and over again, just to make sure this was really happening.
Finally, when we were a sud-free zone, he kissed the top of my head and turned off the faucet. He reached for a towel and wrapped me up, and twisted my hair up into a second towel.
And then he sighed.
“I can’t believe I have to get ready now.” “Get ready?”
“I’m signed up to clear up the function room at the Three Friars. We left it in quite a state.” I couldn’t hide my disappointment. “Can’t you stay? Do you have to?”
He brushed my lip with his thumb. “I don’t want to let the others down.” “But it’s a Saturday… it’s…”
“Shitty and ill-timed, I know.”
“Can’t you ring in sick? Tell them you’re ill?”
He laughed at that, and then sighed. “That’s really not my style, Helen; I don’t like letting people down, even though the idea is tempting.” He hugged me to him, kissed my forehead. “Look, the sooner I get there, the sooner I’ll get back.”
I accepted defeat, party over. “Ok, I’ll get dressed.”
But he pulled me back as I went to leave, and his eyes were dark and serious and made my tummy flutter. “Don’t,” he said. “You can stay… you can wait for me…”
“Stay here?!”
“Why not? I’ll only be an hour or two. Believe me, I’ll be hurrying back.” “You want me to stay?” I couldn’t stop smiling.
“Yes, Helen, I want you to stay.” He grabbed a towel for himself. “If you can, of course, if you have to get home, I understand.”
“My phone is probably dead, but I could Facebook Mum, tell her I’m still at Lizzie’s.” “I’ll sign you into the laptop downstairs.”
“Then I’ll stay.” “And I’ll hurry back.”
***
I stood in the doorway as his car pulled away, wearing nothing but an oversized white shirt and a pair of black ankle socks. I looked like an idiot, but he hadn’t looked at me that way. He’d looked at me like I was the sweetest fruit in all creation, and I’d loved him all the more.
If that was even possible.
I waved him all the way down the drive, even after the car was out of view, just in case he could still see me. And then I breathed in the fresh morning air and twirled on the spot at my good fortune and blew a kiss at the beautiful sky.
The garden was cold and fresh and alive with winter frost, surpassed only by the panorama of the countryside. This place was a haven, gorgeous and reclusive and rural. And perfect.
Perfect for a man like Mr Roberts and perfect for me, too.
I forced myself back indoors before I caught a chill, and wiggled the mouse to reawaken his laptop. I logged into Facebook and fired off messages to Mum and Lizzie, then took advantage of the alone time to explore my obsessive speculations of years gone by.
I was in his house. In his space. A whole building full of secrets, and insights, and strange little quirks and preferences that I’d have only dreamed of exploring.
I flicked through the art magazines on the sofa, and poked at the ash in the grate, and then I sought out his art studio. The door was hidden behind curtains at the rear of the living room, but it wasn’t locked. My heart thumped as I crossed the threshold, and I was excited, as though I was trespassing into his very soul.
Maybe I was.
The view of the landscape was breath-taking, but not so much as the room itself. A stack of old patio furniture was piled at the far end, but the rest of the room was filled with easels and brushes and canvases at various stages of completion. A heavy workbench in the centre of the room housed a collection of sprays and varnishes and palette tools, and underneath were pull- out trays of paints, in all the colours of the rainbow, perfectly arranged and at odds with the random arrangement of everything else in this place.
I looked through a stack of finished abstract pieces, and the colours and depth made my heart sing. An interpretation of the world through the window, in twilight, could have been hung in any posh gallery going, it was so rich, so alive, so skilled.
The other easels were facing the opposite direction, and I had to step further into the room to appreciate them.
Oh… my… God…
My cheeks burned, even though he was miles away, and I fought the urge to scurry away, to the safety of his bedroom where his sheets were still covered with us, and sex, and the rush of last night.
I felt like an intruder here, but I was transfixed, compelled to walk further, closer to the girl in the painting. The girl in the painting was me, she had to be me.
She had my hair and my eyes and my nose, and she was posed like me, the way I posed myself in my paintings.
I flipped through more box canvases to the side, and they were more of the same… a woman craving release, shackled, or tied, or held down by strong hands. His hands.
Oh God, they were beautiful. They were so beautiful.
All those nights of dreaming and hoping and rubbing myself to orgasm weren’t just idle fantasy.
He was real, and he was dark like me, complex like me, tainted and perfect and everything I ever wanted. And my heart had known it, even when my mind hadn’t.
I was looking for more when I saw another pile in the corner, but these were different.
The brushwork was exceptional, razor-sharp and skilled, with a lattice effect of cross-hatchings to govern the overall appearance. This was special art, art that gave you butterflies and artist envy. I brushed the dust away from the signature, and made out a clear AR.
Anna.
I found a picture of her on the mantelpiece, and she was just as beautiful as a teenage weirdo like me would fear. Her dark hair was bouncier than mine and she was curvier, prettier, lovelier.
And dead. She was dead.
I felt like such a horrible, jealous little cow.
I closed the door on the art room, and decided to stick to the safe option.
The laptop was still signed in, and I was about to log back into Facebook and mind my own business when a directory icon caught my eye on his Desktop.
Anna Mark Private
Private.
What is it about the word private?
I didn’t want to look, I really didn’t, but I was guided by some morbid fascination that took control of my fingers and tapped that double click, and the directory contents window sprang up in front of me.
Pictures. Loads of pictures. I scrolled down.
Videos, too.
I caught a flash of nakedness, and looked away with my heart thumping in my throat. And then I knew I was doomed. Oh shit.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
This was really none of my business. It was absolutely, definitely, one million-billion percent none of my business. But I couldn’t stop myself clicking Play.
***